Flotsam (35 page)

At five o’clock the last hand was dealt. Then the cards were put aside. Steiner had won 106 schillings.

The champion of Buchs roared off on his motorcycle with no farewells. Steiner and the Emperor Franz Josef went to the border. Franz Josef showed him a different way from two nights before. “Go in this direction,” he said. “Be sure to hide yourself tomorrow morning. In the afternoon you can go to the station. You’ve got money enough now. And don’t let me see you here again, you highway robber,” he added in a graveyard voice; “otherwise we’ll have to apply for a raise in salary.”

“All right. Sometime I’ll give you a chance to get back.”

“Not at tarots. I’ve had enough of that. At chess, if you like, or at Blind Cow.”

Steiner crossed the border. He wondered whether he should go to the Swiss customs and demand a return engagement, but he knew he would lose. He decided to take a train to Murten and look for Kern. It was on the way to Paris and was no great detour.

* * *

Kern was walking slowly toward the general Post Office. He was tired. For the last three nights he had hardly been able to sleep. Ruth should have been there three days ago. During the whole time he had had no news of her. She had not written. He had resolutely told himself there was some trivial cause and had thought out a thousand explanations—but now he suddenly believed she would not come at all. He felt strangely numb. The noise of the streets penetrated as though from a great distance into his dull unformulated sorrow, and he walked like an automaton putting one foot in front of the other.

It took a moment for him to recognize the blue coat. He
stopped. It’s just any blue coat, he thought, one of the hundreds of blue coats that have been driving me crazy this week. He looked away, and then looked at it again. Messenger boys and a fat woman, laden with parcels, blocked his view. He held his breath and noticed he was trembling. The blue coat danced before his eyes between red faces, hats, bicycles, packages, and people who were constantly getting in the way. He walked on cautiously, as though on a tightrope and afraid he might fall off at any second. Even when Ruth turned around and he could see her face, he believed he was suffering from a diabolic trick of the imagination. It was not until her face lighted up that he rushed forward to greet her.

“Ruth! You’re here! You’re here! You’ve been waiting and I wasn’t here!” He held her close in his arms and felt her clinging to him. They clung together as though they were standing on a narrow mountain ledge and a storm was tugging at them to pitch them into the abyss. They were standing in the middle of the doorway of the general Post Office in Geneva at the hour when the crowds were largest and people were pushing by, jostling them, turning around and laughing—they noticed none of it. They were alone. Only when a uniform appeared in Kern’s field of vision did he regain his senses. He let go of Ruth.

“Come quick!” he whispered. “Come into the Post Office before something happens.”

They hurriedly melted into the crowd. “Come this way!”

They took their places at the end of a line of people waiting in front of the stamp window. “When did you get here?” Kern asked. The Post Office had never seemed to him so bright before.

“This morning.”

“Did they take you to Basle first or straight here?”

“No. In Murten they gave me a residential permit for three days. So I came right on here by train.”

“Marvelous! Even a permit to stay! Then you needn’t feel any fear at all. I had pictured you being alone on the border. You’re pale and thin, Ruth.”

“But I’m entirely well again. Do I look ugly?”

“No, much prettier. You’re prettier every time I see you. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” Ruth said. “Hungry for everything—to see you, to walk along the streets, to breathe the air and to talk.”

“Then we’ll eat right away. I know a little restaurant where they have fresh fish from the Lake. Just like Lucerne.” Kern beamed. “There are so many lakes in Switzerland. Where is your baggage?”

“At the station, of course! After all, I’m an old and experienced vagabond.”

“Yes! I’m proud of you. Ruth, you’ve come to your first illegal border crossing. That’s almost like a graduation. Are you afraid?”

“Not a bit.”

“You needn’t be, either. I know this border as well as my own pocketbook. I know everything about it. I’ve even got tickets. Bought them in France day before yesterday. Everything is ready. I know the station thoroughly. We’ll stay in a little tavern where it’s safe up to the last minute and then go straight to the train.”

“You’ve bought tickets? Where did you get the money for them? You sent me so much.”

“In my desperation I plundered the Swiss clergy. I stormed through Basle and Geneva like a gangster. I won’t dare let myself be seen here for six months at least.”

Ruth laughed. “I have some money with me too. Dr. Beer got it for me from the Refugees’ Aid.”

They were standing close together, moving slowly forward with the line. Kern held Ruth’s hand firmly in his. They were speaking softly in lowered voices and trying to appear as indifferent and unconcerned as possible.

“We seem to have uncanny luck,” Kern said. “You not only turn up again with a permit, you actually bring money with you! Why in the world didn’t you write to me? Wouldn’t they let you?”

“I was afraid. I thought they might arrest you if you came to get a letter. Beer told me about the affair with Ammers. He thought too it was better not to write. I wrote a lot of letters to you, Ludwig; I wrote to you constantly—without paper or pencil. You know that, don’t you?” She looked at him.

Kern squeezed her hand. “I’m sure of it. Have you rented a room yet?”

“No. I came straight here from the station.”

She didn’t tell him that she had been standing in front of the Post Office since nine o’clock that morning. “I thought I’d take a room in the same boardinghouse you’re staying in. Isn’t that the easiest way?”

“Yes, only—” Kern hesitated for a moment. “Look here, these last few days I’ve become a sort of nighthawk. I didn’t want to take any chances. And so I’ve been making use of the state boardinghouses.” He noticed Ruth’s expression.

“No, no,” he said. “Not prison. The customs houses. You can sleep there all night. They’re warm and that’s the important thing. All of the customs houses are beautifully heated when it’s cold. But that’s not the thing for you. You have a residential permit—We could make a fine gesture and take a
room for you in the Grand Hotel Bellevue. That’s where the representatives of the League of Nations stay. Ministers and similar useless people.”

“We’ll not do that. I’m going to stay with you. If you think it’s dangerous, let’s go away tonight.”

“What?” the clerk behind the window asked impatiently. They had moved forward to the window without realizing it.

“A ten-centime stamp,” Kern said, quickly recovering himself.

The clerk handed over the stamp. Kern paid and they went toward the exit. “What in the world are you going to do with that stamp?” Ruth asked.

“I don’t know. I just bought it. I react automatically when I see a uniform.” Kern looked at the stamp. The Devil’s Falls in the Gotthard. “I could write an anonymous letter of abuse to Ammers,” he remarked.

“Ammers—” Ruth said. “Do you know he’s taking treatments from Beer?”

“What? Is that true?” Kern stared at her. “Now tell me they’re treatments for liver trouble and I’ll stand on my head with joy.”

Ruth laughed. She laughed so that she swayed like a field in the wind. “Yes, that’s right! That’s why he went to Beer. Beer is the only specialist in Murten. Just think—that adds a problem of conscience to Ammers’ difficulties—because he has to go to a Jewish doctor.”

“Great God! This is the proudest moment of my life. Steiner told me once that the rarest thing in life was to have love and revenge at the same time. Here I am standing on the steps of the general Post Office in Geneva and I have them both. Perhaps right now Binding is sitting in jail or has broken his leg.”

“Or someone has stolen his money.”

“That’s even better! You have fine ideas, Ruth!”

They walked down the steps. “It’s safest where there are crowds,” Kern said. “There nothing is likely to happen to you.”

“Are we going to cross the border tonight?” Ruth asked.

“No. You must rest up first and get some sleep. It’s a long way.”

“And you? Don’t you have to sleep too? After all, we could go to one of the boardinghouses on Binder’s list. Is it really so dangerous?”

“I no longer know,” Kern said. “I don’t think so. As close to the border as this not much can happen. I’ve gone back and forth too often. The worst they can do is to take us to the customs authorities. And even if it were a little more dangerous, I still wouldn’t go away alone tonight I think. At twelve o’clock noon, in the middle of a crowd, you can be very firm about the right thing to do—but at night when it gets dark everything’s different. Besides, with every minute it’s growing more and more improbable. You’re here again—how could anyone go away of his own free will?”

“I wouldn’t have stayed here alone either,” Ruth said.

KERN AND RUTH SUCCEEDED
in crossing the border unobserved and took a train at Bellegarde. They arrived in Paris in the evening and stood in front of the station, not knowing where to go.

“Cheer up, Ruth,” Kern said. “We’ll stay at some small hotel. It’s too late to try for anything else today. Tomorrow we’ll have a look around.”

Ruth nodded. She was tired from the night trip. “Any hotel will do.”

In a side street they found a red electric sign: Hotel Habana. Kern went inside and asked the price of a room.

“For the whole night?” the porter asked.

“Yes, of course,” Kern answered in surprise.

“Twenty-five francs.”

“For two persons?” Kern asked.

“Yes, of course,” the porter replied, amazed in his turn.

Kent went out and got Ruth. The porter glanced quickly at them and pushed a police form toward Kern. When he saw
Kern hesitate, he smiled and said, “We don’t take those too seriously.”

In relief Kern put down his name as Ludwig Oppenheim. “That’s all we need,” said the porter. “Twenty-five francs.”

Kern paid and a boy took them upstairs. The room was small, clean, and even had a certain elegance. It contained a large, comfortable bed, two washstands and a chair, but no wardrobe. “I guess we can get along without a wardrobe,” Kern said, going to the window to look out. He turned around. “Now we’re in Paris, Ruth.”

“Yes,” Ruth replied smiling at him, “and how fast it all happened.”

“We don’t have to worry much about police forms here. Did you hear the way I talked French? I understood everything the porter said.”

“You were marvelous,” Ruth replied. “I couldn’t have opened my mouth.”

“The funny thing is you speak French much better than I do. I’m just bolder than you, that’s all. Come, now we’re going to get something to eat. A city seems unfriendly until you have eaten and drunk in it.”

They went to a little brightly lighted
bistro
near by. It was ablaze with mirrors and smelled of sawdust and anis. For four francs they received a complete meal and a carafe of red wine as well. It was cheap and good. They had had hardly anything to eat all day, and the wine rose to their heads and made them sleepy. They soon returned to the hotel.

In front of the porter’s desk in the lobby a girl, wearing a fur coat, was standing with a rather drunken man. They were bargaining with the porter. The girl was pretty and well-groomed. She looked contemptuously at Ruth. The man was
smoking a cigar; he did not move out of the way when Kern went to get his key.

As they climbed the stairs Kern said, “Pretty elegant here, isn’t it? Did you notice that fur coat?”

“Yes,” Ruth smiled, “it was an imitation. Just cat fur. Something like that doesn’t cost much more than a good cloth coat.”

“I would never have known that. I’d have thought it was mink.”

Kern snapped on the light. Ruth let her pocketbook and coat slip to the floor, put her arms around his neck and pressed her face close to his. “I’m tired,” she said. “Tired, and happy and a little afraid, but mostly tired. Help me get to bed.”

“Yes.”

They lay beside each other in the darkness. Ruth put her head on Kern’s shoulder and with a deep sigh immediately fell asleep like a child. Kern lay awake for a while listening to her breathing. Then he too fell asleep.

Something woke him. He sat up with a start and listened to the noise outside. His heart began to pound; he thought it was the police. Quickly he leaped out of bed, ran to the door, opened it a hand’s breadth and peered out. Someone was shouting downstairs and an angry, piercing woman’s voice replied in shrill French. After a while the porter came up.

“What’s wrong?” Kern asked in excitement through the crack in the door.

The porter looked at him in tired surprise. “Nothing, just a drunk who didn’t want to pay.”

“Nothing more?”

“What more should there be? Things like this happen occasionally. Haven’t you anything better to do?”